CASSIE
I leaned my back against the tree. I was upside down inside. Jason’s family was still deep in conversation and his father occasionally directed a hate-filled look at me. When I’d begun to wonder if they’d ever stop talking, they separated and walked toward me as a group. Eli kept his head down as he approached.
Jason stood off to the side of them, close but not mingling with them. I lifted my chin, determined I wouldn’t show the fear I felt. My gaze came to rest on Jason’s mom, the one who’d attacked me. She didn’t look away and she didn’t look as if she regretted what she’d done to me at the campground, either.
Jason’s father crossed his arms and tilted his head toward Carl in a nod as if giving him permission.
Carl pulled his lips back when he spoke so that they became thinner. “We would rather die than save your species.”
I blinked. “But… All of you will die, too.”
“Yes, but we will die as heroes for having erased your kind from the universe.” Carl turned and started walking away. Jason’s father stooped to lift Evonie’s body and then he and Eli followed. His mother took a step closer and I backed up.
“It’s your fault Evonie’s dead. You had no right to bring the Ragespawn here. It’s time for me to finish what I started.” Her eyes narrowed into slits. She raised her hand, palm side out toward me.
I grabbed her arm and tried to keep her from unleashing her power on me.
Jason got in between us and pushed her backward. “Go,” he ordered her.
She stumbled and slid on the leaves. She scowled and spoke so quickly it almost sounded as if she hissed the words. “Move, Son or I’ll—”
“I’m not your son.”
She winced. “Protect the human, then.” Her lips tightened; then she let out an arrogant laugh. “She’ll always have to look over her shoulder. Never feeling safe, never knowing when someone is going to get her… She’ll know exactly how our family has felt all these years.”
“Or I could just sic the agency on you now that my name has been cleared,” I said, tired of her threats.
His mother smiled. “No, you won’t.” She gave a taunting smile. “Because you know that would implicate Jason and you’d never do that.” Waving her hand dismissively, she turned away, saying with a chilling promise, “I’ll see you someday.” Taking one long look at Jason, she walked away.
I shuddered as I watched her leave. When we were alone, I said, “Jason, I’m—”
“Don’t, Cassie. Don’t lie to me and say you’re sorry because you’re not. But don’t worry. You won. I’m going to give you what you want and help you.”
Jason moved toward a fissure in the rock nearest the spaceship and held his palm out toward the opening. His power burst forth and shattered the rock, exposing the Void.
I crept to his side and peered into the yawning abyss. A gust of cold air blew across my face. The scent was of decay and death. Jason’s brow furrowed as he concentrated his power into the abyss. Though I heard a faint hissing sound coming from the rocks. At first, that’s all the sound there was.
Then the trees shook and leaves fell like a rain shower. Birds protested and took to the sky in countless flocks as they fled the wooded area. Deer and rabbits ran across the field, streaming past us. As they ran, twigs and dirt trembled as far as the eye could see. The ground below our feet rumbled and then all went still. The air grew hotter, hot enough to drench us in sweat and soak our clothes.
“I’ve exposed the breach in the core. A little more power should—”
Without warning, black and red streaks of electricity like colored lightning bolts shot from the Void. The currents latched on to Jason’s left forearm like a chain, and pulled him toward the opening.
I screamed and ran toward him.
“Stay where you are. The Void is fighting back,” he said through clenched teeth. He fired at the arc, but his power slid along the current and instead of breaking it, fed into it.
The Void pulled him closer to the opening.
I searched the area frantically and found some of the explosive left over where I’d placed it at the foot of a tree. Not knowing what else to do, I threw it into the abyss. The charge disrupted the Void’s energy, freeing Jason and tossing him flat on his back.
I rushed to his side and ran my hands along his arm. “Jason, I’m sorry. I never meant…”
He sat up and pulled away, his expression distant. He was breathing hard and fast like he had before when he’d used his power and had to wait for his strength to return. “I don’t want to hear anything you have to say.”
My heart shredded, I tried again, “Please, I just—”
“I said I didn’t want to hear it.” He got up, moved to the opening of the Void, looked down for a second, then walked back to the Ragespawn’s body. Lifting it up, he dragged it to the entrance and tossed it over.
As the creature fell, he used his power to strike the body. As it exploded, Jason aimed his power at the Void, holding his hands steady until he exposed the upper mantle. As the heat blasted out, Jason pulled me behind him and his power surrounded us both with a protective shield. It surprised me that he was still looking out for me, still saving me even after I’d betrayed him.
Trees near the opening withered, then burst into flames. The grass caught fire and black smoke filled the air. Jason kept his hand outstretched for several minutes, then finally lowered them. Turning to the fire surrounding us, he held out his hands and forced it into the water at the base of the waterfall. The water sizzled and steam rose. The ground around us was scorched.
“Don’t walk near the damaged ground. It could give way. I’ll find the other Voids and make sure the core is sealed.” His tone was flat as he walked off.
I couldn’t let it end this way. “Jason, please…”
He stopped. Emotions flashed across his face. Anger. Disappointment. Hurt. “Why Cassie?”
My heart held so many things I wanted to say. I’d done what I had for my mom. For Sydney. Millions of people had been saved, but it had cost the boy I loved everything. His family. His way home. Because of me. I knew I’d made the right decision, but I ached to make things right between us now. I touched the hard line of his jaw and he jerked his head away. “It didn’t have to end like this.” His voice was cold, his gaze hard as it raked over me.
“Jason, please try to understand. You didn’t care about my mom or that there were millions of lives—”
“I did care! All I’ve thought about since I found out my power caused the earthquakes to start was how I could stop them. How I could save this planet. Save you.”
“But you didn’t tell me if you even thought the Earth could be saved—”
“Because I didn’t want to disappoint you. I thought I could come up with a way to fix the Earth that could let my family go home while I stayed behind. I’d decided I wasn’t leaving. I couldn’t bear the thought of not being with you. You should have trusted me.”
“But we fixed everything.”
“No. We didn’t. Now it’s too late.” His voice turned hoarse. His shoulders slumped. “You meant everything to me.”
“Meant?” I asked, feeling my world start to crumble.
“I hate you for what you’ve done to me, to us.”
“You can’t mean that.” I lifted my hand as if I could physically stop this from happening, stop him, change his mind. Heal the hurt. Something. Anything.
“Yeah, I do.” He shook his head and turned around, then looked over his shoulder. “Good-bye, Cassie.”
My heart tied into knots. I opened my mouth, and then closed it. I searched his eyes, looking for a sliver of care, but his eyes were unyielding.
“Please…just go,” he said, turning around, no longer looking at me as if he couldn’t stand the sight of me.
Tears poured down my face. “Jason…” His back remained stiff, his hands fisted. I headed for the road, walking slowly at first, then running as if I could outrun the heartbreak.
* * * *
A week later, life returned to normal. Sort of. I was back in school basically trying to move on with my life as if that was even a possibility. I missed Jason with an ache that grew bigger every day, but I was trying hard to at least stop crying myself to sleep. I had trouble eating and I’d lost weight. I had bags under my eyes and it took every ounce of my strength just to breathe. I struggled not to sit day in and day out and stare through my window wondering where Jason was. If he was safe. If he’d ever stop hating me. I worried about his family coming after me. If he’d miss me if they found me and his mother made good on her promise to kill me.
The media had reported extensively on what happened. They claimed Jason and I had mistakenly been labeled suspects. The various stations all naively claimed my father and Rick had been killed in the line of duty by a suspect in a drug fueled rage. They’d been given heroes funerals. Only me, my family, and Rick’s family knew the coffins had been empty. Their real bodies taken by the agency. We were told to keep quiet so we wouldn’t induce panic among the masses. Our silence was now part of national security.
Some people were sympathetic about what I’d been through, telling me how sorry they were that the Alien Eradication and Defense Department had almost ruined my life. Others pointedly stared, then steered clear, probably wondering if I was a little green alien in disguise.
With Mom and Sydney’s help, we’d worked late every evening locating each one of the Voids. I’d enlisted their help because I knew there was nothing us humans could do. The USGS was trying to come up with a way to seal the areas of the Earth’s core weakened in those locations and so far none of their attempts were working. My actions had bought the Earth some time but if we didn’t get the rest of the Voids sealed, Earth wasn’t going to last.
“How’s your mom today? She was quiet last night,” Sydney asked as we headed out of the building after the last class.
“She visits Dad’s grave every day and talks to him. It’s hard.” I could hear her crying at night sometimes, but I didn’t share that part with Sydney because I cried, too. It still shocked me that my father had been murdered.
“I’m really sorry. I know you don’t think so, but you’re a hero. If you hadn’t done what you did, we’d all be dead. To think that the Earth’s core could implode, that’s freaky.”
“Jason is the one who sealed the first core.” I shook my head. Saying his name out loud caused a sharp pain to splinter through my heart. “I don’t want to talk about him.” I hadn’t seen him since the day he said he hated me. I could still see the frozen expression on his face, the bleakness in his eyes.
“Would you rather talk to him?” she asked, pointing to the parking lot when I raised my eyebrows at her.
Jason leaned against the driver’s side of Sydney’s car. His arms were folded, and his eyes were hidden behind a pair of sunglasses. I couldn’t stop staring at him. I tried to tell myself not to get my hopes up, that he could be here for any reason other than to see me.
“I’ll go see if Dane wants to see a movie tonight.” Sydney backpedaled toward the school, then with a wave was gone.
I walked slowly toward Jason, drinking in every inch of him with my eyes.
“Take a ride with me,” he said with a nod toward a red, sleeked out car.
I shifted my bookbag to my other shoulder and bit my lip. It wasn’t fear that held me back. I would never be afraid of him. After a week, I still hadn’t reached the point where I could sleep at night without my heart aching so badly that it woke me. “That’s not a good idea,” I finally said.
Jason pulled his sunglasses off and tapped them against his palm. “I won’t hurt you.”
“At least not physically,” I said. “You broke my heart and I ruined your world.” I twisted my fingers together.
“You didn’t ruin my world. You altered it.” He hooked the end of the sunglasses into the neck of his T-shirt. “My parents told me I have the kind of power I have because I’m supposed to use it destroy all of our enemies.”
“Like humans,” I said.
He nodded. “Yeah. But I realized I have a choice. I don’t want to be the kind of Tazavorn who’s bitter and out for revenge. I don’t want to hold on to pride.”
“What does that have to do with me?”
“My pride was stung because you didn’t trust me, but you were right not to. I kept a lot from you and I was wrong to blame you for what happened.”
My heart skipped a beat at his words and my mouth went dry.
“You were trying to save the people you love just like I was trying to save my family. Everything that went on. My becoming an outcast, Evonie’s death, knowing my family was stuck here… I couldn’t deal, and I said some things to you I didn’t mean.”
“You sounded like you meant them. You said you hated me.” The memory of his words stung.
“I did at the time, but it was the hurt talking. I made a mistake and I’m sorry.” He toyed with the end of his sunglasses. “I missed you. I realized what an idiot I’d been to push you away, and I had to come and find you.” When I didn’t answer, he rubbed the side of my arm, skimming his fingers down to my wrist.
His touch made me shiver. “I don’t know that it’s wise for us to pick up where we left off if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“Then let’s start over.” He held his hand out. “Hi. I’m Jason, and I’m an alien. I have a thing for beautiful Earth girls. Especially ones named Cassie. You’re the girl who’s going to change my life.”
“Is that right?”
He nodded. “You don’t know it yet, but you’re going to fall in love with me, and then I’m going to get a case of the stupids and blow it, but you’re gonna take me back.”
“Didn’t you hear me? You said you hated me.”
“I know. Did I mention I had a case of the stupids?” He hooked his fingers through the loops on my jeans and tugged me closer. “Can we start over?”
“What if you resent me in the future? Feel like I’m the reason you’re stuck here on Earth?”
He sighed. “I’ll always look at the sky and wonder, but while I was recovering from my case of stupids, I realized what I really wanted was to be with you and that nothing else mattered.” He swallowed and lowered his voice to a husky whisper. “You are my future and I’ll never resent that.”
Work through this or not have Jason in my life. No surprise which thought was the most painful. I took a deep breath and stuck my hand out. “Hi. I’m Cassie, and I’m a human. I have a thing for aliens. Especially the one in front of me. You don’t know it yet, but I’m the girl for you.”
“My girl.” He grinned and lowered his head until he touched his forehead to mine.
“I like the sound of that.”
“Me, too,” I said.
He draped his arm across my shoulders and steered me toward his car.
I whistled. “Nice.”
“It was Carl’s.”
“Then…your family… They’re gone?”
“Yeah. I don’t know where they relocated.” He looked momentarily sad, then patted the hood. “Carl left it for me. What do you think of it?”
I studied the expensive vehicle for a second. “It’ll do.”
His jaw dropped. “It’ll do?”
“Well, I mean, it’s no spaceship.”
He laughed. “True, but you do get the alien.”
I couldn’t stop the grin that spread across my face. “My lucky day.”
“Maybe,” he said.
“Maybe?”
“Your human scientists can’t figure out how to seal the weakened core in the other places.”
“I know.” I couldn’t keep the worry from my voice. “The Earth is still in trouble.”
“Only if I don’t seal them, so I guess I have to do that.”
“But you can’t. Even though we’ve both been cleared, the agency is still suspicious about you.” I lifted a shoulder when he gave me a questioning look. “My dad’s agency computer is still at the house and I’ve been monitoring what’s being said.”
“And?”
“And they’re planning to watch you, which means they’ll figure out you’re not a human if you go to all the weakened cores and suddenly they’re repaired.”
“I’ll save their planet and the humans will dissect me. Nice trade-off,” he said. He looked at the school, then at me. “I have to do this because it’s the right thing to do.”
“You’ll go on the run? Not come back here?”
He nodded.
“I can come with you.”
He raised his eyebrows. “You’d leave everything?”
“Trade it all for an uncertain future with an alien who loves me? Yes, I would.” Suddenly shy, I said, “I mean, if you want me with you.”
“Cassie Grant, I will always want you with me.”
I smiled and took out my cell phone. “I’m going to call my mom and tell her that I have to leave for a while. Since she learned about Dad and the whole Earth on the brink of destruction, she realized that my destiny is bigger than either of us knew.”
“You do have a bigger destiny,” Jason said. “I knew it as soon as I realized you were the girl mentioned in the ancient scrolls.”
“How’d you know it was talking about me?”
“It says in the writings that there’s a human who can withstand the ability to suspend time.”
“Is that why I was never affected when you stopped time?”
“Yes, and the scrolls also say that human has a great purpose in the lives of the Tazavorn.”
“I’m interested in one Tazavorn in particular.”
“The good looking one who knows how to rock your world, right?”
I laughed. “You’re still so arrogant.”
“I have a right to be. I’m a Tazavorn.” He grinned and opened the passenger door for me. “Ready to save the world one more time?”
“Only with you,” I said. He leaned into the car after I got in and kissed me. I knew that we would face danger together in the future because of what he was, but at that moment, it didn’t matter. Everything was perfect.